CITY HALL -- With five days to go in his 12-year-tenure as mayor, Michael Bloomberg has turned his attention to touting the city's record low crime figures.

In a memo -- titled "T-Minus 5" -- from Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson to members of the administration and others, Wolfson said the mayor will "highlight the Administration's record fighting crime while reducing incarceration rates."

He'll do that by visiting a Neighborhood Opportunity Network Center Thursday in South Jamaica, Queens, Thursday, and attending his final police graduation ceremony on Friday.

Bloomberg will swear in 1,100 new police cadets Friday.

After five days hitting all five boroughs -- including a stop on Staten Island where Bloomberg trumpeted the amount of new jobs created, particularly in outer boroughs -- the Bloomberg administration turned to crime statistics Thursday.

Among them: New York City ranks as the safest big city in the nation, with fewer major felony crimes per 100,000 residents than any of the top 25 largest cities in the country; crime is down 32 percent compared to 2001, even with a bigger population and fewer police officers; the city is on pace this year to have the fewest murders ever -- beating last year's record low, and down 49 percent from 2001; shootings are also on pace for a record low, and there has not been a successful terror attack in the city since Sept. 11, 2001.

All this, Wolfson wrote, while the city saw its incarceration rate drop by 36 percent -- while nationwide it rose by 3 percent.

"So during the last twelve years, the United States also saw crime declines, but it was achieved by locking more people up," Wolfson wrote. "But New York City didn't reduce crime by locking more people up: in fact the City actually put fewer and fewer of its citizens behind bars as crime fell to record lows."

Wolfson lauded the NYPD and its leader, Commissioner Ray Kelly, as well as other top administration officials for using innovative programs like felony drug courts or the Young Men's Initiative to keep people out of jail.